Collateral Flame
by Oparu
Summary: When Rumplestiltskin and David put the True Love potion inside Maleficent, there were consequences they did not intend because in dragons, magic is life. Written for tumblr's Dragon Queen Week.


**_Notes_**

 _Reminiscent of rape and the emotional fallout of an event without containing sexual assault. Putting a magical object inside of someone without asking is a violation, and my brain ran with the idea._

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See the end of the work for more notes

"Can you even get drunk?" Regina asks, slipping into the booth across from her. "Is this a noble attempt to try?"

Regina waves down the adorable werewolf who brings the drinks. She even raises her eyebrows when Regina asks for a glass. Maleficent stares at her, meeting her eyes. Werewolves always respond well to plays for dominance and even exhausted, emotionally spent and trying her damnedest to get drunk, she's a dragon.

The wolf brings Regina a glass and leaves them in the empty garden, little lanterns filling the evening with light. Mal sets another one of those funny notes on the table. Why they've made this flimsy-paper-cloth money instead of gold or silver is beyond her, but the larger numbers make her smile. It matters not to Maleficent, she has a bank account and the numbers were high enough to make the little bank teller's eyes widen. Regina made sure she had a house, and it's beautiful, set back from the street just down the road from Regina's own.

It's big enough for Lily to have her own section, rooms that are hers alone, and she moved in. She lives under the same roof, as Maleficent's always wanted her too. Her life should be peaceful, it should be whole, because Lily is here.

Lily's secret gnaws at her, and she doesn't have the sleeping curse here to chase it away. Nor would she. Hence the alcohol, poor substitute that it is, she just needs to take the edge off before she talks to Regina.

Regina can help her. She might be the only person who can.

"Getting drunk, however unlikely, seemed safer than destroying the local forest." Mal lifts her glass to Regina and downs it. "Don't worry, I've already arranged to pay for the damages, and the alcohol."

"I'm not worried about the Widow Lucas' liquor supply."

She _is_ worried about Mal and that heats her stomach more than the alcohol. Regina still cares. Part of her screams that of course she does, she always has, but trust is hard. Perhaps the most difficult. Maleficent's never been enough for Regina. She needed the Dark Curse to quiet the hole in her heart, replace it with another, but here, in this strange world she has Henry, and she's found quiet. She shouldn't disturb what Regina has, she shouldn't ask, but this is for Lily.

And herself, but she can't admit that yet.

Out of all the spirits arrayed before her, whiskey is her favorite because it tastes like smoke, and fire, and when it evaporates on her tongue, it's almost enough to make her head spin. Not quite, which is a tragedy.

"You are aware of my search for Lily's father."

Regina downs her own whiskey and pours them both another round. "I'll need that if you're going to tell me that she's mine."

Mal stares into her brown eyes across the surface of whiskey. "It would be better if she was."

"Who?" Regina demands, not unkindly. Her curiosity sets her face alight and Mal wishes the whiskey could do something.

Nothing can. She's trapped in the truth.

"I didn't know you were with anyone else-" Regina says, again, full of wonder, not jealousy.

"Not recently." She rolls her eyes upward because that's a whole other conversation and she'll need more for that than whiskey. Regina has a way of getting things out of her that no one else does. "And not in the appropriate time."

"Then I don't understand, if she's not mine, what happened?"

"Magic," Mal sighs, and she drops her gaze to the table. Her eyes sting the her tears run hot when they start. She can still feel the Prince's sword at her throat, the sharp sting of that egg slipping into her gillslit. "My kind, we're very susceptible to powerful magic. Magic for humans is difficult, it takes from you. For dragons, fire adds to fire."

"So there was some kind of magic, something strong enough to spark Lily within you?"

Regina's quicksilver intellect makes it easier. Mal can't look up, can't face her because for some reason this is a shame. The couple who took Lily, are her creators. Their love in that egg sat in her chest, radiating power and magic, and her body responded with Lily, giving that magic a home. Lily is hers more than theirs, a child of true love, but in a way it's unpleasant.

An intrusion, a kind of violation, because she did not ask for them, for the intimacy of that sharing. Rumplestiltskin wouldn't have understood, or cared. Dark Ones understand power, manipulation, not creation.

Not wonder, because the Dark One could never understand the exquisite moment Lily first pulsed within her, or how she grew, how she lived within her, sharing her life, her magic, and her blood.

Regina touches her wrist. "What was it? The curse?"

Mal shudders, reaching for Regina's hand. "No. That egg, the golden one Rumplestiltskin decided to place inside me." She picks up the paper napkin, brushing it against her eyes. "I didn't know what it held then, but now, I know it was true love, that of Snow White and her Prince, and-"

"Shhh," Regina murmurs. Then she's around he table, on Mal's side of the booth, her arm around her shoulders. "You don't have to tell her."

"Lily deserves the truth." She should insist on that. Make Regina force her to be brave.

"That the people who stole her and ruined her life are her parents?" Regina tilts her head, contemplating the idea. "No, she doesn't need that."

Mal drops her head to Regina's shoulder, telling that hide her tears. "What do I say? I can't can't lie to her, tell her that I don't know. I won't-"

"Say she was conceived in love," Regina murmurs, her voice low and gentle. "Let her think it's me."

It's a roundabout way to admit affection, but no small gift. Regina would let her daughter be hers as well, accept Maleficent's child as her own, no matter what that brought her. She hasn't had time to think on it, or deal with the ramifications of becoming the mother of an angry dragon who's lost her childhood.

"Regina-"

"It's a truth, several, in fact. We were together, and you-" she pauses, not because she didn't have feelings for her, but because even now, Regina doubts her worthiness. "You loved me."

Mal kisses her forehead. "I love you still."

"Then let me tell her," Regina insists. She strokes her hair back, caressing her cheek. "She'll be angry."

"You don't deserve that."

"My curse brought both of you here, almost as much as Snow and Charming did."

"It's not you fault," Mal protests again. "It's not."

"Let me help," Regina says again. "Please, you don't have to go through this alone."

This is everything the way she says it. This is Lily, the strength of true love, the confusion, and the peace of letting this half-truth be the reality instead. Lily came from love, and Maleficent's love for Regina is too forceful to dim, even after years underground and the grasp of death.

Regina is loved.

Lily came from love. Could she let it be that simple? Could she look into Lily's eyes and tell her a better truth?

Regina kisses her lips, her mouth still fresh with whiskey. "I'm sorry that happened to you," she says, and cold rushes over her. No one's said they were sorry but Regina. "Let me help."

When Lily arrives home, Maleficent's knees are unsteady, turbulent like the changing wind, but Regina stands at her side.

And they speak a truth, and another, and Lily's anger fades to wonder, to a kind of acceptance, because perhaps she can see another truth on their faces: she was made in love.

 _ **End Notes**_

 _I wanted to try something where Regina wasn't Lily's mother, and I stumbled into this, which is fairly dark, but hopeful at the same time, because Regina would protect them both, and there's love in the heart of it._


End file.
